William Kircher

It’s easy to pick out Bifur from the 13 dwarfs in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” He’s the one with the giant ax in his head. The detail was a controversial filmmaking decision, eliciting a petition to director Peter Jackson from fans who complained that Bifur had no such injury in J.R.R. Tolkien’s book “The Hobbit,” on which the film trilogy is based. But for Bifur actor William Kircher, the ax provided a boon of material for developing his character. “In medieval times, people would get wounds like that, and they had to leave it because taking it out was more dangerous,” Kircher said. “Straightaway I went and started researching what that kind of injury can do to you. It’s kind of like getting a stroke, so it can affect their speech and the way they think, and they zone out, so I […]